


Goodness Knows (Honeysuckle Rose)

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, I Love The Tico Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 10:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15628560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Moving the bees is the first step. Tonight, she’ll bring over her mattress and some of her clothes and begin the emotional work of actually moving out of the house she’s lived in for the past five years and into a new one. The house that has been home to her, that she’s become herself in, a place of safety and friendship and, most importantly, Finn. “It’s only a ten-minute drive,” she tells herself under guise of telling Finn as he pulls the car into the parking lot of the general store down the road. “It’s not like I’ll never see you again.”--In which Rey moves out, and Finn falls in love.





	Goodness Knows (Honeysuckle Rose)

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about beekeeping and I don’t know why I made Rey a beekeeper in this. Any mistakes in beekeeping that any beekeeping readers might notice are from my own ignorance and making incorrect assumptions based on google. Also the word beekeeping is fun to type.
> 
> Thank you also to spacedarcy for Ben "Big Dick" Solo.

“Want to take a dunk in the reservoir?”

It’s high summer, and they are sweating bullets. Rey’s hives are properly installed in the backyard of her new place and they are sitting on her—presently empty—back porch, staring over the similarly empty garden, watching as her bees buzz hither and thither, trying to get used to the newness of their environment.

“Yeah,” Rey says, tilting her face up towards the sun. She likes the sun up north. It’s not so brutal and dry, and it doesn’t make her skin crack, except when she forgets to wear sunscreen too early in the autumn. She shoots Finn a look. “How long do we want to go for? Worth stopping and getting some hard lemonade?”

Finn’s face splits into a grin, and he gets to his feet and the two of them make their way through Rey’s empty house and back out to his car. They’ve left the windows open in case any of the bees hadn’t made it out of the car, and so it’s not ridiculously overheated despite sitting in the sun for the past hour. Rey kicks off her shoes and pops her feet onto the dashboard of the car stretching.

Moving the bees is the first step. Tonight, she’ll bring over her mattress and some of her clothes and begin the emotional work of actually moving out of the house she’s lived in for the past five years and into a new one. The house that has been home to her, that she’s become herself in, a place of safety and friendship and, most importantly, Finn. “It’s only a ten-minute drive,” she tells herself under guise of telling Finn as he pulls the car into the parking lot of the general store down the road. “It’s not like I’ll never see you again.”

“You won’t be rid of me that easily. And you won’t be alone, remember?” He waggles his eyebrows at her suggestively and she half-blushes. She knows he’s making an effort. She knows he’s never really liked Ben, or understood what she does. “Besides, we both know you’ll be on my couch for the next few weeks until Big Dick—”

“Don’t call him that.”

“—gets here with the furniture. I’m buying,” he adds. “Stay here.”

So she does.

She likes this car, likes the way it smells, likes the memories she has of it—two am tacos, road tripping to meet Jessika’s aunt who grows her own weed, rainy day carpooling and the sound of drops thrumming peace into her mind in a way she’d never known in the desert. She has her own car—a hunk of junk she’d cobbled together over the course of several years. Not particularly gas efficient, but it had been free in the making and that’s what had mattered. And Ben’ll have his car, when he gets here.

She pulls out her phone and texts him.

_Just got the bees set up. This is real._

She tucks her phone away. It’s still early out west, and Ben sleeps late. He’s probably not even up yet. She brings her knees to her chest and watches Finn in the convenience store. He’s chatting with the cashier and a moment later he comes out with two six packs of hard lemonade which he puts in the second seat.

“No cooler, so we’ll have to drink them fast,” he tells her as he buckles up and starts the car up.

“Daydrinking and swimming. Perfect summer activities.”

“Amen, sister.”

The reservoir isn’t _actually_ a reservoir, but Rey’s never known it to be called anything else. It’s huge, and lined with stone in a section near the road and it’s a great place to come and cool off in the summer. She hadn’t brought her swimsuit with her, but her underwear is dark and elastic enough to be mistaken for a swimsuit and she’ll keep her t-shirt on when she goes in the water and that’ll be fine enough for a Saturday in the late morning.

The water is perfect when she dives in and swims out into the middle of the reservoir. She expects that Finn’s right behind her. Finn’s always behind her, always racing her to the other side—two kids who’d never had siblings being wildly competitive with one another as always.

But when she gets to the center of the reservoir, she turns and Finn’s not there.

He’s standing under a tree, still on shore chatting with a girl in a t-shirt and shorts and big dark sunglasses. Rey is too far away to make out whether it’s a welcome conversation or one she needs to run interference on. He hasn’t got his arms crossed, so she suspects it’s the former and turns back to her swim, finishing the path to the far side of the reservoir before turning back. She can’t remember the last time Finn had actually talked to a girl. She’d asked him once, bluntly, if he were gay, and he’d shrugged and shaken his head and that had been that. So she can’t help but feel a little bit excited at the possibility that he’s chatting someone up right now.

Her muscles are tired and her heart is pounding by the time she makes it back to the tree and she is _ready_ for some hard lemonade. Finn is sitting down with the girl and one of the girl’s friends—or so Rey presumes.

“Rey!” Finn says, waving, “This is Rose and her sister Paige. Rose, Paige—this is Rey.”

Rose is still wearing sunglasses, but she has a nice enough smile as Rey waves and bends down to grab some lemonade. Paige is watching her closely, and there’s something sharp to her eyes.

“Hi,” Rey says, a little breathless, sitting down next to Finn. Automatically, her hand reaches for her phone to check her notifications, to see if Ben’s texted her back. He hasn’t and she tosses it back onto her shorts before asking, “How’d you all meet then?”

“Last week at a bar when I was out with Poe,” Finn tells her. “When you were out west.” She pops the top off her hard lemonade and begins to drink it down. Finn got the brand that’s too sweet because he likes it more, which is probably why he offered to pay.

“Troublemaker, that Poe Dameron,” Rey says between sips. She’s thirstier than she wants to be, which means she’ll be drunker than she should be before long. Not that that matters too much. It’s Saturday, and she just set up her beehives in her new house, and soon she’ll have a mattress there. And she probably should buy groceries. Very adult, she is.

“Seems like it,” Paige says. She’s still got her eyes on Rey, but the moment that Rey looks her way, she turns to her sister. “Did you still want to head to the farmer’s market?”

“The one over on Westhill?” Rey asks, and Rose nods.

“Is it any good?” Rose asks her.

“Not after noon,” Finn says, “Most of the stuff’ll be gone by now—you’ll be left with the not very ripe stuff.”

“Still better than grocery store stuff, though, right?” Rose asks. “Supports local farmers and all that?”

“Sure,” Finn says, “But you’d better get going if that’s what you want.”

Rose looks at Paige and Paige gives her what Rey could only assume was a sisterly significant look. Then Rose gets to her feet.

“It was great seeing you again, Finn! And nice to meet you Rey.”

“And you!” Rey says, smiling up at her. Paige waves by way of farewell, and the sisters are off towards their car.

When they’re out of earshot, Rey glances at Finn. “They seem nice. You met at a bar?”

“Yeah,” Finn replies, stripping off his shirt and jerking his head towards the water. He hasn’t swum yet, and he gets hotter faster than Rey. She takes one final swig of her lemonade, emptying it before heading down to the water with him.

“I’m not going as far out as you,” she tells him, knowing her limits.

“Fine,” he shrugs. “Yeah, we met them down at Maz’s while you were fucking your brains out.” Rey doesn’t even bother denying that that was what she’d been doing out west. Sure, she’d been helping Ben pack, but she knows—she _knows_ —he’s made more headway since she’d left than he had while she’d been there. Even if it takes him the rest of the month, which it just might, given the work schedule Snoke’s been forcing on him lately. “They just moved here. Rose is working at a children’s justice clinic and Paige is…I want to say she’s working in…tech?” He shrugs off Rey’s snort. “Poe was talking more to Paige. I only caught bits and pieces.”

“Only caught bits and pieces?” Rey asks, elbowing him. “Is that what the kids are—”

“It’s not like that,” Finn says, rolling his eyes and sounding suddenly defensive, which only makes Rey even more convinced that it was _just_ like that, but she stops all the same. She doesn’t want Finn to get mad at her, right when she’s moving out. She doesn’t want to even begin to antagonize him, because what if it breaks everything, and sure, Ben’s moving east, and will be here in a few weeks, but she couldn’t bear it if anything breaks in her friendship with Finn. Finn stood by her, always, even if he doesn’t like Ben, even if he thinks it’s a mistake that they’re moving in together without a grace period of Ben being in the same town to see if short distance works as well as long distance, even if—

She stops that thought before she lets it get out of hand. Finn was the first person in her life who made her feel not worthless. She isn’t even going to let herself begin to think of worthlessness and Finn in the same sentence.

So instead of prodding him more, she swims at his side and asks him what other shenanigans he had gotten up to with Poe, and if she needs to be worried as worried about _his_ future roommate as he’s worried about _hers_.

 

-

 

“Oh, lilies! I love lilies!” Rey says delightedly as she runs towards them, bending her nose down to smell.

“Lilies?” Finn says, writing them down in his phone. Ordinarily, they share the note taker role when they run errands. But when Rey’s around flowers, she loses her head a little bit.

“Lilies. And I want to get peony bulbs now that I live in a place that can grow peonies. And Roses. Lots and lots of roses.”

She catches it when she says the word _roses_ , that flicker of Finn’s eyes, the way he looks around. “The flower, Finn.”

“Yeah, I know,” he mutters. “I didn’t take it any other way.”

“Sure.”

“You’re seeing things that aren’t there,” he tells her, but he’s avoiding her eyes.

“Am I?” the question is quiet, gentle, and when Finn looks at her, his face is soft.

“She’s nice. And I do like her. I do. But I don’t _like her_ like her. At least, I don’t think I do.”

“Have you ever _liked_ liked anyone?” Rey asks. Because as long as she’s known Finn, and she’s known Finn for a long time at this point, she’s never seen him like like anyone.

Finn shakes his head.

“So how would you know?”

Finn glances at her. “Because it feels sort of like when I first met you. And I didn’t end up liking liking you, did I?”

Rey goes a bit cold, and crosses her arms over her chest. The smell of plants and dirt and living things filling the garden center becomes that much more pronounced.

A moment later, Finn’s arm is around her. “I’m not replacing you just because you’re moving out.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Sure it’s not,” he says and there’s a knowingness to his voice that is, frankly, unfair. Only Finn and Ben can pull this _I know you better than you know yourself so cut the crap, will you?_ tone that almost always makes Rey feel off balanced.

It’s also why she loves them both so much. They make her feel balanced again.

She gives him a small smile and then turns back to the flowers. “Anyway,” she says, trying to pretend she hadn’t just been caught having a minor freak out by her best friend. “Roses.”

“Gotta love ‘em.”

“The queen of flowers.”

“You got it.”

 

-

 

Finn might have been joking, but he had also been right: even though Rey has moved out and Poe has moved in, Rey spends more time in the house than Poe does. She continues to flop about on the couch watching TV with Finn, or help him cook, or fix the faucet on the kitchen sink which always ends up busted because Finn isn’t careful with it when he’s turning the water off.

That’s how she meets Paige for the second time. Late one night as she and Finn are cuddled up on the couch together, trying to decide if they’re going to watch another movie or if they’re going to call it quits, Poe gets home and in his car is Paige.

“Hi!” Rey grins up at her, glancing between Paige and Poe. Paige waves at her. She looks a bit tired and glances at Poe, clearly unsure of how to proceed.

“Want something to drink?” he asks her and the two of them disappear into the kitchen.

“Should we make ourselves scarce?” Rey asks Finn.

“Probably,” Finn says. “Here’s hoping that Poe’s sex noises will be less traumatizing than you and—”

“Stop.”

“Ben Big Dick Solo.”

“ _One time_ I mention how big his dick is and you are never going to let it go.”

“Listen, whatever helps me understand that relationship,” Finn teases.

“Yes, because I’m _so_ the type of person who dates someone because of how big their dick is.” From the kitchen she hears Paige talking about flying for the Air Force, and Poe sounding very impressed with that.

“I know you’re not dating him for his dick,” Finn says. “That’s _why_ I call him Big Dick.” He pats her shoulder conciliatorily. “And it’s not like I should be judgmental, I suppose. You at least _have_ someone who makes you happy.”

As if the gods had heard the comment, Paige’s voice drifts in from the kitchen saying, “Yeah, it was just me and Rose. Nothing ages you quite like having to help your kid sister through school.”

“It must be wonderful to be so close,” Poe says.

“She’s the best part of everything,” Paige says very seriously.

“We should make ourselves scarce,” Rey says now, because she hears what sounds very much like a breath hitching and a sigh. “Hope it’s not too traumatic for you.” She gets up off the couch and slips out the front door, hearing Finn’s door shut behind him as she goes.

She gets a stream of texts from Finn as she drives.

_Still traumatic, even when it’s not you and Ben._

Rey grins at her phone.

In the middle of the night, she wakes up for water and sees another text from Finn.

_Fuck, I think I like like Rose._

_Please tell me this isn’t because you just heard your roommate banging her sister and it gave you ideas._

She expects Finn to be asleep, but he starts typing right away.

_Ew, no._

_God why would you say that?_

_Mostly to give you shit about Big Dick._

_Ugh. I suppose I’ll have earned the mockery, won’t I?_

_Yes. But I’ll give you a grace period from here on out until you actually get with her._

_That’s good of you._

_I’ve never actually dated anyone before. I have no idea what I’m doing._

_What if I wasn’t meant for this?_

And there it is—she sees it now. The reason that Finn had never seemed interested in anyone, the reason that he’d never tried dating apps, or picking up people in bars. Finn, like Rey, was a child of loneliness, a child of abandonment, and there’s nothing like abandonment to make you afraid to make connections. Afraid of committing to someone who wouldn’t commit back.

_I didn’t either. I don’t think anyone ever really does. It’ll be ok. I’m here for you._

_< 3_

Rey tucks her phone to her chest as if she’s hugging Finn now. This is big. She knows it. This is bigger than anything he’s ever done—admitting to himself that he wants to connect to someone. She’s so proud of him.

And she’s also scared for him.

 

-

 

Rey gets a text from Finn right as she’s getting out of work.

_Rose invited me to participate in a charity race she’s helping to organize. Want to join?_

_Sure!_

_When?_

_Next Saturday._

Rey is wide open next Saturday. She is wide open until Ben finally drives across the country with all his furniture. She’d planned on getting her garden set up after placing her flower orders, but that can wait until Sunday.

_Will I be third wheeling?_

_No—she asked if I wanted to invite you, so it would be weird if I didn’t, right?_

_I could still flake._

_Yeah, but if I’m going for it, she also has to get to know you. You’re a done deal in my life._

_< 3_

_Ok I’ll come, but we both know I run faster than you so I will…casually run faster than you after a while so you can let the adrenaline and the companionship take over._

_You do not run faster than me._

_I do._

_And in this case, you’d better be glad I do._

 

-

 

Rey knows that she’s not supposed to check on her bees _too_ frequently, but she can’t help it in the first week after she moves. She puts on her whites and her netted hat and goes over to her hives, listening carefully to the gentle thrumming of more bees than she can count doing their little bee thing in the hives that she’s set up towards the back of the garden.

It’s early evening, the sun is going down and purple and red streaks slash their way across the sky. She takes a picture of it and texts it to Ben.

_Can’t wait to spend evenings here with you._

_Nothing makes me want to get in my car and go more than that._

_Do you have an updated ETD?_

_No. Snoke’s trying to get me to change my departure date._

_You’re considering it?_

He doesn’t reply immediately, and she knows he is. She sighs. “Ben, just get out of there.”

_If it’s like…a week I will. It’ll make the financial transition that much smoother. If it’s more than that, it’s a no, but he’s dragging his feet on specifics._

_I don’t see how that benefits him._

_He tends to make dumbass choices that don’t always benefit him. Especially around me._

_I’m so glad you’re quitting._

_I miss you._

_Love you._

_I’ll be there soon I promise._

 

-

 

Rey wakes up way too early on Saturday and drives over to—to Finn’s.   God it’s weird thinking about that place as Finn’s. Not hers. Hers is the house devoid of furniture and the one with bees in the backyard, not the one with the broken faucet and Poe’s sex noises. She waits in the driveway for ten minutes until Finn shows up in shorts and a t-shirt, looking particularly grumpy.

“Remind me why I’m doing this?”

“Because proceeds will help children in the foster system and the girl you’re trying to get with is organizing it.”

“It’s six in the morning,” he whines.

“It is,” Rey agrees. “We have time to stop for coffee if you like.”

“The last time I ran after coffee I thought my heart was going to explode.”

“If you run with Rose, you’ll have the same feeling.”

“I thought there was a moratorium on teasing.”

“Oops. Yes. Sorry.”

They drive in silence. The roads are mostly empty of other cars, but as they approach the kickoff of the race, they start to see tons of cars parked along the road. “Something tells me,” Finn begins slowly, squinting as he looks down the road, scanning for a parking spot.

“Yup,” Rey sighs and she pulls over, parks, and cracks the windows. “It’ll be a warm up,” she tells Finn as they get out of the car. “My legs are still too stiff.”

“How do you always manage to be so positive?” Finn mutters as they walk along the road.

“Years of self-delusion that my parents actually cared about me?” Finn throws an arm over her shoulder and squeezes. “Come on, let’s go.”

They arrive at the registration, get their numbers, stretch, and it’s only with five minutes left before the race starts that Rose appears at Finn’s shoulder.

“Hi!” she says. She sounds tired. “Sorry—one of our volunteers called in sick so I needed to help out.”

“All good,” Finn says cheerily. “Hope it wasn’t too much.”

Rose shrugs. “It’s always too much, but someone’s got to do it, right?” She smiles at Rey. “How’s your morning going? Thanks so much for coming. I know it’s early.”

“It’s for a good cause,” Rey smiles at Rose. _Like getting you and Finn together._ “And I’m sort of a morning person so up a little bit earlier isn’t the worst in the world.”

The race begins and they’re off amidst a throng of people. Almost immediately, the long-time runners take off ahead of the rest of the joggers. “I can’t imagine being a runner like that,” Rose says. “I mean, it’s good and all, but to have the stamina for that…”

Finn casts Rey a look and she almost elbows him. Ben’s a runner. Not just a jogger, someone fit—he can go for miles and hours, legs flying without seeming to break a sweat at all. “You can work towards it,” Finn says. “Rey’s been dragging me out for the past few years and at first I could barely manage a mile. Now, though…”

“I can only get myself out for things like this,” Rose says. She’s already panting, but she looks determined. “If I know that it’s going to help, I’ll do it. Especially if it’s like…what’s the worst that can happen? My muscles are super sore? That doesn’t seem like a good enough reason not to. But getting myself out of bed for regular jogging…” she laughs.

“We’ll just have to organize more charity runs to get you out,” teases Rey. Rose is a slow runner. Slower even than Finn. Ben would already have ditched her.

“How’s your week been?” Finn asks, and Rey can hear subtle nervousness in his voice, as though he is afraid of letting any conversation fall apart.

Rose heaves a sigh. “Long,” she says. “I only just started, but this race was so badly organized and they could tell I wouldn’t say no to tackling it.” She sighs—or rather tries to. It comes out more as a pant. “And I don’t mind. Really I don’t. Anything to help out, and get the lay of the land. But still—”

“Stressful.”

“Yeah,” Rose gives him a smile, cheeks flushed, forehead shining with sweat. “It won’t be this bad again. I’ll own things from the beginning and won’t get dropped in in the middle to clean up other people’s messes.”

Rey decides it’s as good a time as any to pull ahead so she does, trying to imagine Ben’s voice in her head as she goes. They don’t run together frequently—mostly because he’s a runner and Rey’s not—but every time they do, he’s always encouraging. She can just imagine his reaction to the text she’ll send him when this is all over _I just ran a 5k and you’re not out of bed yet. Did we bodyswap or something?_

Every now and then, she checks over her shoulder to see how far back Finn and Rose are. The answer is: increasingly far back. Rose’s pace only seems to be slowing and Finn is matching her. _They look good together,_ Rey thinks, and already gleeful. _Finn has a crush. Finn has a crush. Finn has a crush!_

And Rose seems like she has a good head on her shoulders—at least based on the very minimal conversations Rey has had with her. Finn’s talked to her more extensively, and he has good taste in people. Like Rey, he’s not too quick to trust.

But he trusts Rose.

And more importantly, he likes likes Rose.

Rey finishes the race a good twenty minutes before they do. She grabs water, sits in the sunshine, and sends Ben a selfie as a “pics, it happened” proof that she had just run a 5k. By the time Finn and Rose show up, they are walking, and Rose’s hand is clamped over her side in the exact place that a stitch would happen.

They’re still talking, and she watches as Finn gets Rose a water, which she downs quickly before they both look around for Rey.

“Sorry about the stitch,” Rey says, and Rose smiles at her, flushing a little.

“I got some shin splints too, so it’s best you ran ahead,” Finn teases.

“Oh no. Ill-fated race,” Rey says. “Apart from everything running smoothly for the cause,” she adds with a smile at Rose. “Pancakes? My treat for abandoning you?”

Both are eager, and Rose texts Paige to say she doesn’t need to be picked up and they make their way back to Rey’s car.

There’s some awkwardness getting in the car. Finn tries to get into the back seat with Rose so that she’s not sitting by herself, but Rose ends up thinking he’s offering her the front. Rey shoots Finn a look in the rearview as she pulls out, and he shrugs.

Pancakes are ordered and, for Finn, some overdue coffee. Rey runs off to the bathroom for a moment and when she returns, she finds the two of them deep in conversation already.

“It was hard,” Rose says, “Especially when Paige was in the Air Force. Not having parents to support you and having your base pulled away was…well, I grew up,” she shrugs sadly.

Rey slides into the booth next to Finn. “If I can ask,” she says quietly, “What happened to your parents?”

“They died when I was very little,” Rose says and there’s anger in her eyes suddenly. “We lived near this factory that dumped all sorts of shit in the water. And it killed my parents. My grandma was living with us and she always boiled and filtered the water before letting us drink it, but my parents thought she was being ridiculous.”

“I’m so sorry,” Rey says.

“Thanks.” Rose sighs and looks out at the window. Her eyes are a bit bright, and she looks like she’s trying to get hold of herself again. Rey knows that feeling very well. “Nothing ever happened with the company that did it. They still are dumping shit in the water as far as I know. Because, you know, money is more important to them than people’s lives.” She turns back from the window and pulls a smile on her face that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Capitalism’s the worst,” she says forcefully.

“It is,” Rey agrees darkly, taking a sip of her water, determinedly not letting herself remember years of poverty that she had endured for no reason that made any logical sense at all. “You’re lucky you had your sister. She seems wonderful.”

“She is!” Rose says and the anger fades almost instantly from her face. “She makes me think I can do anything. She’s the former pilot, but she’s never once made me feel as though that’s cooler than what I’m doing.”

“What you’re doing _is_ cool,” Finn tells her. “Wanting to help people in need, trying to make people’s lives better—that is cool. That’s the kind of shit that I wish I’d gotten when I was growing up. That we both did,” he adds, nodding to Rey.

Rose looks at Rey curiously, but it’s Finn who tells her. “Rey’s in the no-parents club too. We met in foster care.”

“Oh,” Rose says slowly looking between the two of them. But whatever it is that she’s thinking, she does not say. Instead, her gaze turns behind Finn’s and Rey’s backs and she says, “I think pancakes are incoming.”

They are, and they’re delicious, and it’s not long before Finn and Rose are laughing about Paige and Poe, who have apparently been _ridiculously_ all over one another in the past week.

Finn heads to the bathroom before they head out and Rey and Rose head out to the car to wait for him. “He’s a good guy,” Rose says. “You’re lucky to have him.”

“I am,” Rey says. “I don’t know where I’d be without Finn. He’s the best person I know.” Because it’s the truth. He is—by far and away—the best person she knows, and she doesn’t know where she’d be without him. Probably still in that junk yard.

They smile and nod, and now is when Rey feels how she’s been pulling back from the conversation so that Finn can talk to Rose because she doesn’t know what to say at all. Luckily, it’s not long before Finn joins them and she takes them all back towards their various homes.

 

-

 

_She said you’re a good guy, thought you should know._

Rey texts Finn after she gets out of the shower. He’d been too busy gushing about Rose in the five minutes between her house and his, analyzing every interaction they’d had from the race through to pancakes for Rey to tell him in person.

He doesn’t reply right away, so she figures he’s in the shower still. But when he does reply, it’s not quite what she expects.

_Is it normal to feel this anxious about someone? Like I feel like I’m going to be sick._

_This isn’t sustainable._

Finn has never been one for waiting. Rey’s the patient one—Finn’s flighty. And his flightiness is showing.

_It’s normal._

_I promise._

_She likes you. It’s so obvious._

_You should ask her out._

She expects him to react with a thumb’s up, or maybe with a “ok I’m gonna do it,” because Finn’s always been decisive about doing things that he wants to do.

But instead,

_What if she says no? I can’t._

_I couldn’t handle that._

_I don’t think she’ll say no._

_But what if she does?_

_Why would she say no? She thinks you’re a great guy._

_What if she just thinks that I was trying to be friends with her in order to get in her pants._

_If she says no, would you still want to be her friend?_

_Yes._

_And would you begrudge her saying no?_

_Fuck no._

_Then she’d be an idiot to think that._

_< 3 _

_Take a deep breath. You can do it._

_The worst that can happen is that you’ve made a new friend, right?_

He doesn’t reply.

Because she knows him well enough to know that the worst that can happen is he’ll take it as a sign that maybe he wasn’t meant to be loved. They’re too much alike like that. _The no-parents club_ , he’d jokingly called it. He’s less open than Rey is about the impact of his parents, but she sees it strong as sunlight in moments like this when he’s worried he’s unloveable.

As if he even _could_ be unloveable.

“Finn,” she whispers at her phone, but he doesn’t reply, and after a few minutes she sighs, and puts the thing down, and goes out to the garden to work on planting. She sweats in the sunlight for a few hours before she goes back inside and sees Finn’s reply.

_I’m gonna ask her. Or try to. Knowing me I’ll fuck it up. Lol._

_You’re not going to fuck it up. You’re going to do great._

_And she’ll be lucky to have you._

-

 

_I tried._

_I don’t think it worked._

_I don’t think I made it clear._

Rey stares at her phone and decides that calling is better than texting in this instance, so she does.

“Ok,” Finn says without preamble when he picks up. “I ran into her at the grocery store just now, and we chatted and shopped together. And I brought up that Poe is throwing a party this weekend,” he laughs bitterly, “Which of course she already knew because Paige is going and it’s definitely a way to introduce Paige to all of Poe’s friends as well as house-warming him or whatever. So I tell her this,” and he takes a deep breath, “And I was like, you should come, and she was like ‘sure’ before I could even say ‘with me’ and then she asked if you were going to be there too, and before I even knew what to say, I said yes, so you should come and help me drown my misery and humiliation.”

“Of course I’ll be there,” Rey says loyally. “I’ll be there talking you up the whole time.”

“Thanks,” Finn mumbles on the other end of the phone. Then he lets out a frustrated groan. “It’s easier to not care about people. Why did I decide to care about people?”

“Because you’re not a heartless, soulless stiff?” Rey suggests. “Because you’re more than people told you you could be your whole life? Because you’re—”

“I get it, I get it,” Finn says. She can hear the embarrassed insecurity in his voice.

“Trust me I could go on for hours.”

Finn’s quiet for a moment, before he says. “Save it for Rose, ok?”

“On it, boss,” she smiles.

 

-

 

The party at Finn’s place is nothing like any party at Finn’s place that Rey has ever attended—entirely because it’s not her and Finn throwing it: it’s Poe.

Poe has a louder taste in parties. He was in a frat in college, and tends to invite his frat bros to things, and that means there’s a lot more beer and a lot more shouting and a lot more loud music than the get-togethers that she and Finn had hosted.

Rey tries not to take it personally when she sees one of Poe’s friends downing beer as though he were nineteen and getting so drunk that he spills his next solo cup all over the floor. It’s not her place. She doesn’t have to clean it up later.

Rose and Paige arrive about an hour after Rey does, at which point Poe and most of his friends are at that glassy-eyed slurred-word stage of drunk. Paige seems to take it in stride, though, heading into the kitchen where Poe plants a wet kiss on her cheek and taking two shots—one right after the other.

“Not much your scene?” Rose asks. Rey’s sitting on the couch that had once been hers with a cup of beer in her hand, wallflowering.

“Not too much,” she replies. “But what can you do?” She raises her beer to her lips and tries to smile into it. She’s going slow. She always goes slow. She’s a handsy drunk, and when Ben’s far away, she ends up a lonely drunk too. Finn’s usually good at assuaging that, but tonight is about Finn and Rose, and she wouldn’t dare monopolize him. He’s in the kitchen with Poe—not quite as drunk as the others, but—even as Rey glances at him, she watches him take a deep drink of beer.

“It’s good of you to be here,” Rose says, sitting down next to her.

“Do you want something to drink?” Rey asks her.

“Nah. Not yet,” Rose replies.

“And I wouldn’t miss it,” Rey adds in response to Rose’s first comment. “Wouldn’t leave Finn to this on his own.”

Rose grins. “Not much his scene either?”

“More his than mine,” Rey shrugs, “but still. Never good to leave anyone alone to that crowd for too long. Good thing you’re here to keep an eye on Paige.”

“She can handle herself,” Rose says proudly. “I’ve seen her deck drunken assholes who’ve tried to grope her before.”

“A true hero,” Rey replies. “She’ll need it, if she’s going to be with Poe.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asks quickly, her eyes flashing at anything that might mean trouble for Paige.

“Oh—not like that,” Rey says at once. “Poe’s a good guy. Finn wouldn’t be friends with him if he weren’t.” There, weaving Finn in. Just like she’d promised. “But his friends can be…a lot.”

As if to prove her point for her, Snap uses his skull to crush a beer can. Rose grimaces.

“Something tells me I won’t be coming to a lot of these,” Rose says. “I love Paige, but this…isn’t my scene.”

“You’ve got to, though,” Rey says at once. “You can’t leave Finn alone to it.”

She watches Rose’s eyes land on Finn, watches the way Rose’s face softens, and then stiffens. She looks sad, all of a sudden.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she says, getting to her feet. “Do you want more of anything?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Rey says, waving her solo cup. She pulls out her phone and takes a sip and texts Ben.

_I’m getting increasingly drunk and I miss you._

She doesn’t expect him to reply straight away. He’s packing, and she’s sure he’s listening to loud music as he does so because he focuses better when there’s loud music playing. She wonders what he’d be like if he were here now, too. Probably curled around her on this couch, or maybe looming over Poe’s friends—taller and angrier than all of them. She sighs. Yeah, the loneliness is setting in.

She glances at the kitchen. Finn and Rose are chatting happily, and Paige has taken another shot and is arguing loudly with Oddy. _I could leave,_ she thinks. _No one would miss me._

 _Stop being a sad drunk,_ she berates herself. _Just because Finn’s got his eyes on someone else doesn’t mean he wouldn’t miss you if you were gone._

As if he knew, somewhere across the country, that she was lonely, Ben texts her back.

_I miss you too. I’ll be there soon. Are you having fun?_

She doesn’t type out, _Not really,_ because that would be giving into the drunkenness, so instead she replies with,

_Not as much as I would if you were here._

_I bet._

She can hear him snorting at her, see him rolling his eyes, and wishes he were there to soften both with a kiss to her temple.

She sighs, and gets up, and goes to the bathroom. She’s had enough beer to mean that peeing should happen sometime soon.

She keeps texting Ben from the toilet.

_I miss you._

_I miss you too and you already said that._

_Are you just saying it because you’re feeling frisky? How drunk are you?_

She smiles fondly at her screen. She wonders if he knows how low she’s feeling and is trying to lighten it all for her. Her throat tightens.

_You know me too well._

She gets up, flushes, washes her hand and as she’s leaving, three things happen at once.

The first is that Ben texts her a dick pic—which he’s typed the words _thinking of you_ onto.

The second is that she walks straight into Paige Tico who clearly also wanted to use the bathroom.

And the third is that her phone drops out of her hand, landing face up.

“Sorry,” she and Paige say in unison as they both bend down to grab her phone.

Paige freezes when her eyes land on the screen and Rey is blushing furiously as she grabs it and tucks it into her pocket, straightening.

Before she knows what’s happening, Paige has shoved her into the bathroom, slamming the door. She looks livid.

“Are you cheating on Finn?” she hisses, her grip tightening on Rey’s wrist.

“I—what?”

“Because I spent two hours today trying to convince my sister that her crushing on a taken guy wasn’t worth the broken heart that she’s got, and that she should just be friends with him and be happy with that because he’s got this top-notch girlfriend who he cares the world about. So are you fucking _cheating on him?”_

Rey stares at Paige.

Then, because she’s drunk and because she can’t help it at all, she starts to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Paige snarls.

Rey pulls her phone back out and cancels out of the text thread with Ben. She opens her camera roll from her trip out west a few weeks ago and starts scrolling through it—selfies she’d taken with him looking grumpy, pictures of him when he didn’t think she was paying attention. She’s too drunk to care that there’s a picture of Ben’s ass in there. It’s not like Paige hadn’t just seen a picture of his dick, after all. “This is my boyfriend, Ben,” she says. “I’ve been dating him for three years. The reason I moved out of this house is because he and I are moving in together when he gets east. So no, I’m not cheating on Finn. I’m really not cheating on Finn. Now Finn doesn’t like Ben, but I don’t think that’s jealousy, I think that’s because Ben has a tendency to be an asshole and used to be more possessive than he is now,” she glances up at Paige. “I knocked that out of him pretty fast. I’m _not_ a possession.”

“You moved out?” Paige repeats slowly, her eyes still narrow. It is clear she is sizing up what Rey has just told her, running through every time she’d seen Rey curled up on the couch with Finn when she was over to see Poe.

“Yeah, almost a month ago. Poe’s in my old room. He didn’t tell you?”

“We focused on other things,” Paige says coolly, and she looks distinctly as though she’s going to heat back up and maybe start snarling again but there’s a knock on the door. “Paige?” comes Rose’s voice. She sounds miserable and Paige glares at Rey as though that misery is entirely her fault and opens the door. “Can we go?” Rose asks quietly, but Paige grabs Rose and the bathroom is much too small for three people but Paige does not care at all.

“You’re telling her what you just told me,” Paige glares at Rey as though daring her to lie.

Rey scrolls back through her pictures to a selfie she’d taken with Ben on the beach. “This is my boyfriend,” she tells Rose. “Not Finn. Finn’s my best friend in the whole world and I will fight anyone to the death for him. But he’s not my boyfriend. I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”

Rose stares at the picture of Ben and Rey for a long while, then looks back at Rey. She looks like she’s processing it all through a haze, and Rey glances back at Paige, who still looks like she’s fuming. “You,” Rey says at last, tucking her phone away again and placing both hands on Rose’s shoulders, “Should go get him.” Rose doesn’t say a word and Rey continues. “You really should. Like, really, _really_ —”

Rose turns away from her sharply and opens the door. Paige shoots Rey a whole new kind of glare as the two of them follow Rose out of the bathroom. Rose is making a beeline for the kitchen, and a moment later Rey and Paige stop dead in their tracks because she’s grabbed Finn by the front of his t-shirt and is kissing him, hard.

Finn stiffens. He’s not one for public displays of affection, and as far as Rey’s aware, he’s never been kissed in his life. Karé lets out a whistle and Rose jumps back, away from him. Rey can’t see her face, but she’s looking up at Finn and Finn is staring at her like he can’t look away.

Then he grabs her hand and pulls her out of the kitchen and onto the back deck and a modicum of privacy.

Rey turns back to Paige. “If I’d known, I wouldn’t have let it get that far,” Rey tells her. She doesn’t have a sister, but if this sort of confusion had been happening to Finn, well—she’d need to hear it too. “I promise. I’ve been talking him up for days, trying to get him to ask her out.”

She can tell that Paige is going to need to walk it off. She can’t really begrudge her that, though, and lets her go off to the kitchen, and more shots, and Poe and his friends.

Rey pulls her phone back out and texts Finn.

_Heading out. I want details but don’t you dare give them to me now. Focus on Rose._

_I also have a story for you when it’s not tonight._

She calls a rideshare and waits on the front porch. She opens her text thread with Ben again and looks at the picture he’d sent earlier, and the message he’d sent right after.

_Call me when you get home. It’ll still be early out here._

She smiles to herself, and looks up at the stars, and the fear of loneliness from earlier in the night fades as she lets the sound of crickets overtake her thoughts.

 

-

 

Rey wakes to about ninety text messages from Finn.

_She kissed me!!!_

_I mean_

_You probably saw that??_

_But she kissed me!!_

_And then we talked a lot_

_She thought you were my girlfriend??_

_(Weird.)_

_And apparently has liked me this whole time and was just confused._

_Because she thought you were my girlfriend._

_She told me about how you told her about Ben_

_(How did she not know about Big Dick you talk about him all the time?)_

Rey snorts at that, but keeps reading.

_Anyway, we’re getting dinner tonight._

_And seeing a movie._

_And you are NOT invited this time._

_What was the story you had for me?_

It’s still fairly early and Rey makes herself a cup of tea with some of last year’s honey before going out onto her back deck, the gentle hum of her bees and the aroma of her garden enveloping her as she begins to type.

_You’ll have to thank Big Dick when he gets east because it’s a picture of his Big Dick that caused Paige to think I was cheating on you because she saw it._

_I thought she’d murder me._

Finn starts replying and Rey frowns at her phone.

_Why are you up weren’t you wooing your lady last night?_

_Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop thinking about how all of this worked._

_And ugh, do I really have to thank Big Dick?_

_No. I won’t even say you’re forever indebted._

_Just that it’s made two very important ladies in your life very happy._

_STOP_

Rey laughs and sends him a string of heart emojis and an eggplant for good measure.

_I’m so happy for you. I can’t stop smiling._

_I can’t either._

_I can’t believe this is real._

_Tell her that, not me._

_Get in the habit of telling her things._

_She’s not replacing you._

_No, but if you don’t get in the habit of telling her things you want to tell me, it’s not going to last._

_You can tell them to me too._

_Just make sure you’re not only telling me._

_Love you._

_Love you too._

_Have fun at your movie tonight._

_Also the moratorium is now over and I get to make lots of fun of you now._

She sends him a few more eggplants before leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes, feeling perfectly content.

 

-

 

“Just how much stuff does he _have_?” Rose asks, staring at the moving truck. They’re standing on the sidewalk in front of her—her and Ben’s—house, having refused all of Rey’s “you don’t have to”s when they’d offered to help her unpack all of Ben’s shit. (“I seem to have an honor debt or something,” Finn had groaned, rolling his eyes.)

“You’ve seen her house, right?” Finn teases Rose, his arm thrown over her shoulders. “Like—she doesn’t even have a bedframe. She has a mattress and some lawn chairs and her bees. That’s it.”

Ben’s getting out of his car which is loaded with stuff too. Rey leaves Finn and Rose behind as she hurries towards him, and a moment later, she’s in his arms, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him.

“Hi,” she tells him.

“Hi,” he replies, smiling down at her. He’s got dark circles under his eyes and looks like he hasn’t slept in a week, but he’s here, and solid, and so comfortingly warm even in the late summer heat.

“Welcome home,” she tells him, and kisses him again.


End file.
